Menla Retreat & Dewa Spa, Pantherkill Road, Phoenicia, NY, USA
Up to 16 in group
February 26 - March 1, 2026
About this Retreat
Certified SkyDancing Tantra Teacher, Psychotherapist, Coach, and Artist
Sara Stout is a deeply compassionate guide in the realm of intimacy, embodiment, and personal transformation. After 32 years as a psychotherapist, she transitioned into teaching Tantra with her husband, Thomas, drawn by the profound and lasting transformations she witnessed in her students. Eleven years ago, she immersed herself in the study of SkyDancing Tantra, and today, she wakes up each morning excited to share what she loves.
As a Certified SkyDancing Tantra Teacher, coach, and sex therapist, Sara brings warmth, expertise, and a wealth of knowledge to her students. With over 25 years of experience supporting individuals and couples in deepening their relationships and embracing their sexuality, she is passionate about helping people embody self-love, reduce body shame, and increase pleasure and passion. Her specialties have been inspired by her time studying with Margot Anand, and include cultivating sexual energy, teaching the power of manifestation, and guiding people toward greater emotional and physical intimacy.
Sara co-founded LovePassionately: School of Mindful and Bodyful Intimacy, where she and Thomas create safe, transformative spaces for people to explore love, connection, and embodied living. She is also a teacher and director of SkyDancing Tantra Institute USA, continuing the legacy of this renowned lineage.
Tantra Teacher, Sexological Bodyworker, Massage Therapist, and Aquatic Bodyworker
SatchiJo (Thomas) Stout is a deeply intuitive and heart-centered teacher dedicated to helping others awaken to their full sensual and energetic potential. With over 40 years as a massage therapist and 10 years as a Sexological Bodyworker, Tantra Teacher, and Aquatic Bodyworker, he brings a profound understanding of the body and its innate wisdom.
Thomas has a gift for creating nurturing, healing spaces where individuals can relax into trust, presence, and connection. His expertise in conscious touch, breathwork, and somatic healing allows him to support students in subtly awakening their bodies and expanding their capacity for intimacy and pleasure. He has studied with several Tantric Masters, including Margot Anand, Laurence Heitzmann & Laurent Lacosse, and Essense Tantra.
Together with his wife, Sara, Thomas has been married for over 31 years. They co-founded LovePassionately: School of Mindful and Bodyful Intimacy, an international Tantra coaching program that empowers individuals and couples to cultivate deeper connection and self-awareness. As teachers and directors of SkyDancing Tantra Institute USA, they continue to share the life-changing practices of Tantra with a growing global community.
Details of this retreat
Are you seeking more passion and love in your life? Do you wish to feel more confident and joyful?
Awakening Passion: Trust, Play & Love is perfect for those who want to discover healthy ways to approach intimacy and create new opportunities to live with more energy, vitality, and authentic confidence. Singles and couples equally appreciate the fun and safe ways we explore love, passion, and relationship-enhancing connection.
Through proven Tantric methods, you’ll build from the bottom up—cultivating a strong, centered self from which passion naturally arises. If life has felt dull or unfulfilling, this weekend helps you rekindle spark, creativity, and choice.
Why Four Days?
Our community asked for more—and we listened. Awakening Passion now unfolds over four days at Menla, February 26–March 1, 2026.
This expanded design means:
✨ More time to explore Tantra as a life skill. Not just an experience, but tools you can apply whether you’re in relationship or not.
✨ Clear, embodied communication. Practice boundaries, consent, and attunement until they become second nature.
✨ Holistic integration. Breathwork, connection rituals, and choice-based touch frameworks that nurture self-trust, play, and joy.
✨ Personal roadmaps. Link your values and desires into a clear integration plan you can take home.
The fourth day isn’t about more content for its own sake—it’s the gift of breathing room. Time to try, to reflect, to embody. You’ll leave not only with insights, but with confidence in your own ability to live Tantra daily—in your love, your creativity, your joy, and your connection to life itself.
And while you’re at Menla, you may also choose to rejuvenate at the world-class Dewa Spa. Between sessions, enjoy healing treatments inspired by Tibetan medicine, soak in the sauna, or simply rest in the serenity of the Catskills.
With over 30 years of marriage, Sara & Thomas Stout embody a strong sense of individuality while diving into intimacy.
“Thomas/SatchiJo and Sara are impeccable leaders in the often tender and vulnerable space of self-love and sensuality.”
~ WN from Wisconsin
Discover how meeting challenges with skill can create closeness, respect, and commitment. This retreat was designed in response to requests for deep intimacy while maintaining autonomy. Most stress and compulsion arise from playing roles that aren’t truly ours. How do you balance your need for attachment without losing yourself?
Through practical exercises, you’ll establish the trust, verticality, and boundaries that allow oneness and bliss—without self-abandonment. When you return to your true nature, tension dissolves and joy expands. And yes, we have fun while we grow.
When you return to your true existence, tension dissolves, and joy is boundless. And you’ll have fun while evolving.
In which area of your life do you want to ignite more passion?
Love? Creation? Joy? Sex? A cause that is important to you?or Life itself?
Do you want to feel more relaxed and light with your body and sexuality?
Feel the freedom that comes with acceptance and self-love.
Passion bursts forth from unrestrained desires.
Imagine being in a community that welcomes you and your true and boundless self.
Who is it for?
Open to all genders, orientations, and relationship statuses. You do not need to be in a relationship to learn Tantric tools. Come as you are and leave with practices you can use with partners, dates, friends—and with yourself.
From this seminar, you’ll take home ways to access your source of ecstatic energy and share it in a conscious way with anyone in your intimate relationships and everyday life. By learning and putting into practice the timeless wisdom of this work, you will gain the benefits from these practices over and over.
“It’s a beautiful way to start on a journey of self-exploration in a container that provides safety, fun, listening, and learning.”
Diane Divone
“Perfect weekend to really find your inner truth with or without a partner.”
Rose M.